And I voted I have mixed feeling abouts 48 FPS, although a more accurate choice for me would have been "no feelings at all about 48 FPS". I've seen the movie 3 times now in 48 FPS in two different cinemas and I'm still failing to see any difference.

For me, the difference between 24 fps and 48 fps, based on one viewing of The Hobbit, is greater than the difference between 2D and 3D or b&w and color. It seems obvious that different people are seeing things very differently, though.

I saw the movie in 24 FPS (in 3D) first because I didn't want to be too distracted by the new tech. Turns out that was a good idea. I saw it in 48 FPS the second time and didn't really like it. Without a motion blur, fast movements looked very odd and I found them hard to follow, almost as if the movie was on fast forward. I could barely focus on anything during the Dale prologue. My eyes eventually adjusted and I didn't really notice a difference for most of the film after that.

I'd have to see a side by side comparison to really judge if the picture's improved. But I guess I have mixed feelings about 48 FPS.

As I said in my review (Off Topic, Monday Movie thread), I thought the HFR helped me make visual sense of the movie more easily. I think 3D does the same and since I saw it first in 2D, it's hard to know how much 3D contributed to this end rather than HFR. But I think there are advantages (for me) in HFR and I think, over time, it will become the default for films. And I can accept that.

If I had a choice (budget wise), I would watch all films in 3D and HFR when offered. Since I don't have that choice, I will continue to use it as an occasional treat.

and liked it better in HFR. Still couldn't really tell what was going on in the fight scenes (way too fast & busy) but at least they weren't blurry, and Peter's trademark "swoop down into the depths" shots worked better. So did the shots of the Eagles.

That said, I'm not sure that 3D added anything to the movie. I'll probably be content with owning a 2D version. The only movie I've seen so far that 3D really made a difference in is "Avatar" - it's the only one where the background was in focus too, so that you could look from foreground to background like you would in real life.

I mostly seem to be learning that everyone has mixed feelings on the format!

I think, perhaps, that I should have used "like" and "dislike" instead of "love" and "hate".

I truly have mixed feelings in that I loved the clarity and depth of field, but found it hard to take everything in due to visual overload and things did look "wrong" or "fake". It was like watching a play for me, which isn't a bad thing. I'd pay some serious cash to see a play with these actors. I expect and hope that I'll feel differently on subsequent viewings, but for right now, the pro is that I get to see great acting in a very intimate format while the con is that the effects don't look as convincing.

I found the 3D HFR Hobbit to be the best depth I've ever seen in a film. Avatar had taken that spot before, but in Avatar, I felt I had to look in the center of the screen where the director wanted me to, as other things were kind of out-of-focus. With The Hobbit in 3D HFR, I felt I could look around the screen wherever I wished, at whatever depth I wished, and it was still clear. It seemed like easily the most smooth and nuanced depth I've seen in a 3D film. Amazing how much this varies from individual to individual.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Cameron can do with Avatar 2 at 60 fps. I just hope and pray he can write a story and script good enough that I'll be able to enjoy the visuals. Although he seems adept at churning out a decent but not spectacular story, sequels are always harder.

I will admit Cameron isn't the best storyteller/writer. He does well enough to get my attention but not so skillfully that I want to praise his storytelling.

But Avatar tapped into a lot of things I'm keenly interested in - both in terms of ideology and visuals. And I love well done 3D (cue the old Viewmaster toy as a kid story) so it was like a perfect storm for me. I really, really liked Avatar.

Now, seeing Avatar in 2D (which I did two out of the three times I saw it at the theater), I still enjoyed it very much... but the high flash of 'magic' wasn't there. The one that evokes a childlike wonder and awe at something that captivates me.

I also watched it again on DVD and still liked it quite alot. Not as much as in the theaters but the story and the music still do it for me (although liking Horner is easier the less one listens to his other scores. I watched some other movie he scored recently and was disappointed by how much the score to that sounded like the score to Avatar. It was easier to like Avatar when it sounded 'fresh')

Then I caught parts of it on a small screen tv in a motel and was struck by how much the whole movie looked like a cartoon. Like a well done Saturday morning cartoon. I don't mean the story was any worse for me. But all the magic of the movie had been sucked clean out of it. When I watched Avatar on the big screen, I *believed* the Na'vi were real. I mean, intellectually I know they aren't. But conceptually, I completely bought into them as actual, real beings. On the small screen, that wasn't happening.

But that doesn't diminish the movie in my eyes. It just tells me how much I value magic in my life. We all find magic in different things. One way I find it is in 3D and/or holographic images (I also collect lenticular items). I love glow in the dark, as well. I loved them as a kid and I didn't let or make myself grow out of that as I aged.

It also kind of explains, I think, some criticisms I read from fans about some movies. Those of us who saw the LOTR movies on the big screen, many of us multiple times, saw those images in their intended display. We then might have watched them on DVD with, perhaps, good tv set ups.

But now we have multitudes of people watching them for the first time and maybe the only time on commercial tv networks. Maybe they're cropped. Maybe their cut for time. They surely have interruptions for commercials.

It would take a powerful story/movie to maintain any 'magic' with that working against it. I love the movie Chocolat. (Depp and Binoche) It was on commercial tv on day as I worked on the computer and so I watched it. I was appalled at how badly it was cut. There was no magic and nothing that would have made me sigh with pleasure or recommend it to a friend.

So when one of the LOTR movies plays on TNT and we get an upsurge in troll posts at imdb, I kind of almost understand why. Someone watched the movie for the first time in this handicapped format and, after hearing what a fantastic movie it was from everyone in the world, wondered 'hun? why the love for *that*?'

I watch The Amazing Spider-Man yesterday and was repeatedly reminded of the music from Titanic. I thought it was an odd coincidence until I saw that James Horner had scored them both. It was actually really disappointing to know that he just repeated a lot of the stuff he'd used before.

It's sad to hear that he's done that with more than just these two films.

And although Shore has a wide range in the style of music he composes for movies, I can hear hints of LOTR scores in other of his scores.

I don't know if they don't see it as rehashing but instead, maybe a 'signature' sound. Or if they aren't aware they're doing it. Or if the director tells them outright: make it sound like Pirates of the Caribbean. I think, sometimes, directors are happy to hear music that sounds like other music attached to hot movies.

We can often date movies just by the sound of their score and this love of bombastic, epic music will date many of these movies as well.

You bring up an interesting point about signature sounds, but to me, I'd rather not be drawn out of a movie because of how similar it is to another.

I think part of the problem is that Horner and Zimmerman seem to be the two most common composers at the moment. John Williams is another. While I like them all, I do think that some new blood would be nice.

My family doesn't go to the movie theater so I never saw any films on the big screen growing up, and now I prefer waiting to see them on DVD or Blu-ray. Despite never having been to a theater I had to attend The Hobbit films and decided to try out PJ's new HFR 3D format.

I absolutely loved the look of it--it wasn't distracting at all and actually drew me further into Middle-earth than I thought it would. I'll probably see it this week again in 48fps and can't help but think that from my perspective, there's no longer a reason to consider seeing LFR theater movies.

In the future, I'll see the next two Hobbit movies and probably any other HFR movie in the theater while continuing to save the others for Blu-ray viewing. PJ's strategy definitely worked on me!

I think 48fps (or something quicker than 24) is the way of the future. The video of the 48fps felt much smoother. But I would feel hard pressed to tell the difference if someone lied to me and showed me one but told me it was the other.

I will have to give 48fps an incomplete grade though. In all of PJ's Tolkien films, he over-saturated and played with the color temperatures for emotional effect as well as to give it certain feel. While that's fine and worked well in LotR, occasionally he did over do it and it was distracting. The color saturation in AUJ in 48fps seems over-done. It reminded me of Beowulf and 300. It seemed fine to me both times in 24fps. The problem is that I don't know which look PJ intended, or even if he intended there to be a difference.

However, my second viewing - the 48fps one - I enjoyed the most. Maybe a little over-stimulation has its benefits!

I'll have to wait to see how other directors use 48fps. If every 48fps film looks over-saturated to me, then the 48fps is a problem.

maybe the way PJ made it, viewing angle is more important than usual
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I found the 3D HFR Hobbit to be the best depth I've ever seen in a film. Avatar had taken that spot before, but in Avatar,

interesting, i didn't feel it had as 'deep' of a feel as Avatar and since the 3d was talked about quite a lot in the pre-production I expected it to be at least as good. Were you sitting in a roughly center viewing angle? I was pretty closeup during an imax showing at 48fps and while the 3d was good and better than most movies it wasn't super impressive. Now i'm wondering if it's just because i had bad seats: 2nd row, center

With "Avatar" I remember staring past the actors into the forest in many scenes because it just seemed to go on and on, there was so much to see. But I also saw it at the biggest IMAX in town - the screen was four stories high - which may have made a difference. I tried to remember to look past the actors the second time I saw "The Hobbit" and things seemed blurry.